3 Easiest DIY Aquaponic Systems Builds

In a basic setup, single loop, and double loop there is always a water tank under the grow bed, is that a necessity?

So Im doing a small system with repurposed hydroponics equipment.

I've got a 40 gallon fish tank under my flood tray with 2 5" koi fish in it along with some rocks and other pondscaping stuff.

There's a 250 gallon per hour sump pump that's pumping the water from the fish tank to a modified 7 gallon square container on a shelf that's maybe 6" taller than the fish tank. The pumps output pipe has a 1/4" air hose with a one way check valve inline to a small air pump, Injecting oxygen into the line and propelling the water up faster like with an airlift pump.

The container has a piece of pond liner splitting the space into two. I then added an overflow pipe to the liner and made the pump plumb into the lowest part of one of the chambers.

The chamber that's being plumbed into has three grades of pond filter media cut to fit the space, the media progressivly get's finer as the water increases to the over flow that leads into the next chamber.

The next chamber is farly empty except for two important things. An over flow that leads back into the fishtank and a sump pump. I think the pump in there is almost 1000 gph.

That pump pumps to a 3x6 grass roots raised bed exactly 2 min a day. That raised bed is on a flood tray. The flood tray is suspended 15" off the ground by a full channel unistrut... table bassically.

This is where things get a little diffrent. The table has a 1" ABS pipe that it drains into, that pipe follows the walls of the grow space to a designated place outside of it.

So i added a T to the drainline and two valves one to the drain line after the fish tank and one leading into it.

I have a few reasons for doing this.

1. Automation: The fish tank has a float valve so i don't have to fill it, my water changes happen based on what possition the two valves are in that lead off of the flood tray.

2. Contamination: If my fish get sick i may need to treat them and that means the water needs to be deposited without coming into contact with the soil, simply unpluging the irrigation line and running it in the drain while i place the fish into quarrentine and clean the tank and filters work well.

Additionally: Fish waste does not have everything plants need to become strong and robust. There are other firtilizers and minerals plants require and the run off after using these firtilizers can kill fish so being able to drain that runn off and switch back to a recirculating system after a week or so is very usefull for reamending your soils and even lite tilling.

3. Renewablility: Although fish waste does not have all the essential things that plants need it does cut the cost of fertilizer signifigantly while incorporating benificial microbes into the soil food web. I find a bit of limestone, gypsium, fish bone meal and biodynamic compost every cycle keeps everything fairly robust. Kelp meal is also used rarely, but i have incorporated it. Also epsum salts.

I left alot of the other stuff out, but this is generally the way I'm growing aquaponically and i'd recommend somthing like this. PH is not a real issue, Fish food is cheap, it's organic and sustainable, you get pet fish and learn a thing or two. I like mine over the flood and drain stuff.

This is the first time this has made sense to me ty!!!

What kind of pump you use for a single loop aquaponics system please?

unsure how much time and effort (and or money to hire and explain to a designer) those animations took, but those are the best for visual learners like myself! Thanks!

thank you for the information.

quero fazer um video desse para a apresentação da faculdade qual programa voce usa?

Thanks man, very informative

Is there a reason you can't use a bio-substrate in the fish habitat, thus avoiding having to remove solids? My 40 gallon aquarium uses bio substrate, and I only have to change the water twice a year, and I change the tiny filter every other month. Now that the tank is established I hardly siphon solid waste at all. I just wonder if this would work scaled up to make the aquaponics process more hands-off. I am very new to the concept, though, and only just trying to figure out all the possible setups. I'm keen to do one where the hydroponics tubes are above the fish pond, to save space. If the pond had a bio substrate, couldn't I skip the solids collection stage and pump clean water directly into the hydroponics tubes? Thanks for your help!

what is the difference of letting the grow bed act as the bio filter itself as opposed to having a different biofilter structure in the sump tank? is a solids capturing device not usually enough to keep water clean enough to deliver to the plants directly? thank you so much for this video!

Interesante diseño pondré en práctica. Gracias

Is mechanical filter not necessary if there's a radial flow settler?

I just put vegetables in my aquarium

Can the fish poop goes to the plant area without filtering?

Why i dont use chicken crap insted fish crap?

Hello Rob =) , great video! a real success!
Nevertheless I would like to know the design application of aquaponic designs without wanting to disturb you in your work!
Because I'm thinking about a small family project

Where is overflow pipe

So I just started my my fish hooked up to the grow bed everything is brand new do I add bacteria to the fish tank or let the fish do it itself I do have some plants 3 8nchs long and some seeds sprouting

If I've got 1sq acre pond can I do aquaponics at that lager scale and what are the cons

👍

Because of your videos and watching other aquaponic growers, I've been growing a year now. I made my system from old swimming pool pump and pool liner for plant growing trough, have three, 55 gallon barrels I got for free, paid 75. USD for 3000 gallon pond fish aeration pump, paid 60. USD for 275 gallon IBC cube. 50. USD for wood to make plant trough, then about 100. USD for PVC pipe. Total with everything I spent less than 350. USD to build. Using 6 goldfish to learn how fish respond before buying fish to grow for food. I don't really use any growing medium, the roots sit ing direct water. I'm growing tomatoes and peppers right now, will add more later.

Hi Rob,
When thinking about different systems, I've often thought the addition of a water tower would be an interesting component as it would take a bit of pressure off the pump, requiring you to only worry about head height, and then from the water tower you could install a manifold to run however many loops you like (potentially). I haven't seen anyone else play with that idea, perhaps it just unnecessary, but I wondered what you thought of something like that?

Always good to see the idea of self reliance Rob. Thanks from SW INDIANA

But wait a sec, how the water level in the fish tank stay "high" enough to keep flowing water into the grow beds during the phase of "charging" that preceed the "discharging" phase? I mean, there's a window of time between those two phases where the fish tank will not receive back any water from the sunk tank since the grow beds are still charging up, and for that same reason the water in the fish tank would become low enough it couldn't "escape out" so the grow beds will stop receving enough water to reach the discharging phase. How do you tackle that aspect?

Thanks Rob.
Do sand grow beds use flood and drain?
And dual root zone do they flood and drain too?

Are there any benefits to a dual loop system? I see none. In fact it seems less efficient and unnecessarily overcomplicated. The core idea of aquaponics is that the plants filter the water for the fish. Why would I recycle half-filtered water to the plants and half-shitty water to the fish??? Why would I use a biological filter to extract material my plants could use to grow?

Won't the mixing of the water in the 3 loop system dilute the nutrients available with the tank and the growbeds draining into one place?

Thanks for the concise information.

💚💚

Thank you important to show flow system simplify so you can visualize a management program. It seems a little complicated, but it should be as simple as taking care of the fish tank.

First winter with my system and oboy lol all good but had to figure some things out love the info rob

Thanks so much for this. I have recently taken down my original system due to a house move and planning on doing a much larger and more complicated system and you have just made it a lot easier! You have taught me so much over the past few years. Thank you!

Nice explanation, hopefully I will be able to build a system one day based on your details 👍
Thanks for sharing 😊

First comment…?